The New York Red Bulls were in an enviable position this time last year. The Eastern Conference’s top seed finished with MLS’ third-best regular-season record and then hit the playoff road and defeated the San Jose Earthquakes in the opener of their two-game quarterfinal series. A draw at home, where New York had lost just once in the previous five months, would see the club through to the semis.

But there was traffic.

Mid-week congestion delayed the arrival of several players to Red Bull Arena. Coach Hans Backe said he was reluctant to make excuses but revealed that “players from Europe had no idea about the (mid-week) traffic in New York” and that the environment before the quarterfinal decider was “a total mess.”

That “chaos,” as Backe called it, plus a once-in-a-lifetime performance from Earthquakes journeyman defender Bobby Convey, was enough. New York crashed to a 3-1 defeat and was eliminated. Season over.

The margin for error in the MLS Cup playoffs is almost non-existent.

Favorites fall with regularity and the twists and turns are unpredictable. Since the league adopted the two-game, home-and-home quarterfinal format in 2003, the No. 1 seed has failed to escape that stage twice as often as it has reached the final. Seven months of excellence and consistency can be undone in an instant, legacies immediately redefined.

On Sunday, the L.A. Galaxy will step into that breach beginning in, of all places, Red Bull Arena. Landon Donovan, David Beckham and the top-seeded Galaxy (19-5-10) will open their quarterfinal series against New York (11-8-16) with an enormous amount at stake.

They know all too well how quickly a fabulous season can unravel. Last year, L.A.’s Supporters Shield-winning campaign came to a screeching halt with one lousy performance, a 3-0 thumping by FC Dallas in the one-game semifinal.

That failure only adds to the palpable tension of this year’s run. The MLS Cup final is at the Home Depot Center. The club’s wage bill is the highest in the league. Donovan, who isn’t getting any younger, has played just 22 minutes across the past four matches while nursing a quadriceps injury. And Beckham, enjoying the finest season of his MLS sojourn, is in the final year of his blockbuster contract.

“We’ve positioned ourselves pretty well for the (playoff) competition, and we’re hopeful we can come out on top,” L.A. coach Bruce Arena said. “Certainly there are a lot of side issues for our club this year, but nothing that’s troubled us. We’re actually excited about the opportunity.”

MLS defender of the year candidate Omar Gonzalez told the league’s website that the key is to “keep it how we’ve been all year. Just focus on the game at hand and just put all your efforts into that game and just focus. If we do that, we’re going to go to the final and we’re going to win it.”

Perhaps for a team as talented as the Galaxy, focus is all it will take. But the MLS Cup playoffs can throw a mean change-up.

The seventh-seeded Colorado Rapids won the title last year. Eighth-seeded Real Salt Lake lifted the trophy the prior season. The Red Bulls are on a 4-1-1 roll and suddenly confident, while the health of L.A. striker Robbie Keane remains a concern.

Are there any playoff elements within a favorite’s control?

There are two, in fact. The first depends on depth, health and how a coach manages his roster during the course of a season. The second is a question of style.

Just like NHL and NBA fans are accustomed to a “playoff hockey” and “playoff basketball,” MLS coaches recognize that grit and graft often pave the path to postseason glory.

Since the CONCACAF Champions League was launched with a group-stage format in the summer of '08, there have been 12 home-and-home MLS Cup quarterfinals. The team that had played fewer games during the course of the calendar year won 10.

Seed doesn’t matter. Fitness does.

L.A. has played 42 competitive matches this year compared to 37 for New York. Only the Seattle Sounders (46) have played more than the Galaxy.

“I don’t think our league has been prepared, our teams aren’t really prepared, for the Champions League,” Arena said. “We don’t have the quality of depth in our rosters. And the challenge of the travel is actually quite shocking, how time consuming it is, how much wear and tear it takes on your body.”

The answer: Travel smartly (more clubs now use charter flights) and rotate players in and out of the lineup.

The teams with depth prosper. So far, no club employing a Designated Player has won the MLS Cup. But with more leeway in the salary budget and expanded rosters, the Galaxy—with three DPs—are in good shape to become the first thanks to Arena’s willingness to rest his stars. Fans don't like it when Beckham is left behind on the occasional road trip (he missed seven this year), but his 36-year-old legs will appreciate the rest come Sunday.

The other statistic working in L.A.’s favor isn’t about star power. It’s about defense. The Galaxy yielded just 28 goals during the 34-game regular season—by far the best in the league. It’s Gonzalez and the back four, not Donovan and Beckham, who might hold the key to the club’s first MLS title since 2005.

“It is a bit grittier. I think there’s a lot greater focus on discipline on the part of the players and the games will tend to be lower scoring,” Arena said of playoff soccer. “We think we have balance. We don’t depend on one player to score, and we get a pretty good collective effort by our team defensively.”

Backe concurs and says that adopting a “cynical” approach to the game helped turn around the Red Bulls' season. He says playoff soccer requires players to take fewer risks and play more direct.

“We learned the hard way we can’t play pretty soccer all the time and win games,” New York defender Tim Ream said. “The teams that are grittier and fight for each other and fight harder are the teams that are successful.”

Many teams, especially those with the New York- and L.A.-type talent, would prefer to build possession out of the back. But in the playoffs, Ream said it’s often best to just clear the ball and “live to see the next play.”

Arena and the Galaxy must match that cynicism to be successful. The road to the Cup is a four-game gauntlet that, fairly or not, will determine how this team, and perhaps the “Beckham Experiment,” is remembered.

“Anywhere else in the world, we would be champions," Beckham told reporters this week. "Do I agree with (playoffs)? No, I don’t agree with it. Obviously, it should be the same everywhere else. I’d be sitting now with two league medals. But it’s not the same, so you have to get yourself up again for the playoffs, and it's tough after a long season of hard games.”

But at least there’s a sense of what lies ahead. The playoffs aren’t entirely random. The winners are rested and ready for battle.